In most ways, Flores was your typical fundie wingnut. A champion of the oil and gas industry (a significant contributor to his campaigns), he has for instance submitted bills that would prevent the Interior Department from issuing any new regulations on the fracking industry, and he has been a consistent opponent of gay marriage: at a 2015 meeting with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Flores for instance suggested that gay marriage will, through some undisclosed mechanism, lead to a breakdown of the family model and an increased number of single-parent-led households, which would again contribute to poverty and then to the breakdown of America through unrest and riots like the Baltimore riots. Then he said, falsely, that 80% of Americans at the time opposed gay marriage. In other words, when he isn’t grasping at imaginary straws, he’s just baldfacedly lying.
Flores subsequently participated in a Capitol prayer service warning that God would punish America for legalizing same-sex marriage, with Flores complaining that “we are truly a troubled nation” in which Christians are being ridiculed and persecuted for defending the family and their faith – ‘persecuted’ meaning of course other people being allowed to marry people I don’t want them to marry.
Flores was of course also one of the members of the House to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, the filing at SCOTUS to challenge the results of the 2020 election on behalf of Texas on the grounds that the signatories didn’t fancy the Pennsylvania election results (and which was, of course, thrown out because Texas lacked standing), something that on its own is sufficient to earn him an entry here.
Diagnosis: Oh, well: He’s completely mainstream. And that his incoherently insane nonsense is, in fact, mainstream is absolutely terrifying.
The worst part about this clown is that there are far more like him, or even worse still in the House.
ReplyDeleteThey use their religion to justify advocating a return to the "good old days," when minority groups like backs, Jews, gays, etc. "knew their place," and kept out of sight.
And it's not just in the House.
It's in state governments, the US Senate, and next month it'll be in the White House.